


Stress Baking

by SilverMoon53



Series: Silver's Summer '18 Fic-a-thon [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Jemma Simmons (Agents of SHIELD) has PTSD, PTSD Jemma Simmons, Post Maveth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stress Baking, and by that I mean takes place shortly after she gets back to Earth, not after the episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 14:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14896079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: Jemma Simmons is a stress baker. Or, she was, before she found herself in the field and her life became a lot faster-paced. She had almost forgotten the comfort baking gave her when she returned from Maveth. But now she’s back and the lab is still too loud and too busy and too bright but the kitchen is empty and quiet and dark at two in the morning and she’s not too surprised to find herself there.





	Stress Baking

If there was one simple, everyday life, average thing that haunted Jemma her whole life, it was cooking. 

There were too many variables there, too much “just add a pinch” and “salt to taste” and “bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown” for her to get the hang of it. She was a woman of science, of hard facts and data, of precision and exact procedure. Cooking simply did not make sense for her, and she never got any better than she was when her mother first tried to teach her when she was 5. Jemma could make box macaroni, and heat a bowl of canned soup on the stove with only mild burning, but making full meals was out of the question for her. Overall, Jemma Simmons hated cooking. 

Baking, on the other hand, she loved with a burning hatred. And damn, was she good at it. 

The complex relationship started with a middle school school bake sale which resulted in her almost burning the kitchen down. 

She wasn’t sure why she took this as a challenge when she had already vowed to avoid cooking altogether, but she did. 

And she took this challenge on like all the challenges she had faced and would face in her later years. She dove head first into cookbooks and TV shows and recipes on the backs of boxes, later graduating into starting from scratch. By the time she went off to SHIELD Academy at age 17, baking had become her escape from reality. When exams became too much, or she was stuck on a project, Jemma could be found in the kitchen baking up a storm. 

She was everyone’s best friend come midterm or exam season, her room always overflowing with baked goods. Pies, cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, she made it all and then some. She developed recipes for peanut free and gluten free everything, adapted others to be vegan. She took requests but rarely followed through; she was more than happy to share the treats with her friends, but she baked for herself first and foremost. 

Jemma still disliked baking in some ways. There was still variation in recipes and temperatures and ingredients, but she grew into the challenge. She used these variables as a release from the stress of the lab, finding it relaxing to know that making a mistake would not result in an explosion. 

And then she and Fitz joined Coulson’s team and they were thrown headfirst into field work and she was jumping from planes and onto grenades and her friends were getting shot and betraying her and Fitz was in a coma and she was undercover at Hydra and Skye was an alien and she wasn’t the only one so there was a new world order and then she, Jemma, was on a different bloody planet and suddenly she was home again but her sleep cycle and her emotional cycle and her food cycle and her _everything_ cycle was messed up and everything was too loud and too bright and too _normal_ and

And that’s how Jemma found herself in the kitchen at 2AM, surrounded by flour and yeast and eggs and mixing bowls and measuring spoons and pans and butter. She held her breath, trying to slow the pounding in her chest that shook her whole body as she cowered under the table, knife clenched white-knuckled in her fist. The fresh cut on her arm - she couldn’t even remember how she had gotten it - stung from the batter hastily slapped on to mask the scent of blood because _that’s how It finds you, you can’t let It find you, you can’t, you can’t you can’t you can’t you can’t_. 

A dark figure edged into the room as Jemma watched. She knew it was only a matter of time before they looked down and saw her. Her panicked mind ran through all the escape routes, yelled at her to take the best one, to get away, to get underground, get away, _away_ , but her body was frozen. Pain gripped her chest as she struggled to breathe and make no sound. It had been a full minute since she first heard the figure approach and spiralled into the survival driven state she was in, and her lungs ached for air.

“Woah,” the figure said softly, looking around. “What happened in here?” _Skye,_ the small part of Jemma’s brain that still possessed some semblance of rational thought told her. _Not a threat. Not a danger. Safe. I’m safe._ A whimper escaped her anyway and she scrambled farther away from the figure. The table shifted loudly as she bashed against a leg and Jemma silently cursed herself for miscalculating the space she had. 

Suddenly there was light, and pain burst through her eyes and ears as the fluorescents screamed to life, Skye surely having turned on the light to see better. Jemma dropped the knife with a whine and slid further down against the fridge she didn’t remember backing up against so she could wrap her hands and arms around her head because it was too _loud_ and too _bright_ and everything was just _too much._

She didn’t manage to shut out the following string of curses or the sharp _click_ on the light being turned off. Jemma felt as much as saw the light die back to the soft glow of the lantern she had been using. Her eyes flew open and she grabbed the knife from where it had landed, wincing as the sudden movement aggravated her cut. 

Nearby motion grabbed her attention and Jemma’s head turned fast enough to hurt, hand clutching the knife held straight out. The figure from before had sat down by the lightswitch, hands out in a placating gesture. Slowly, the pounding blood and the ringing in her ears dimmed enough to let her make out the soothing words.

“-’s okay, Jemma. You’re safe now, you’re okay, you’re back here, on Earth. It’s okay, everything’s okay, Jemma, it’s okay.” 

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Jemma found herself again. Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing evened out, and she was able to put the knife down. 

She was still shaking. Trembling hands reached up to rub blurry eyes free of tears she didn’t remember crying. Jemma ran fingers through her hair in a feeble attempt to straighten her appearance and let out a short, bitter bark of laughter. “Sorry,” she muttered, eyes darting around in an attempt to take in everything but Skye. “Daisy,” she corrected herself out loud, mentally berating herself for forgetting her friend’s new name yet again. 

“Hey, Jemma, no it’s fine. Don’t worry about that. It’s okay.” Her voice was genuine, soft and pitying, as though trying to coax a scared animal out of hiding. Jemma let out a sharp snort at the thought, finding the comparison a bit too accurate for her liking. 

She could still see the knife. Jemma had been able to put it down but not let it out of her sight nor reach, and she found herself fighting the urge to grab it again. Skye had stopped talking again, though she still radiated a soothing calmness. Jemma struggled to find words, feeling the need to fill the silence, but couldn’t make her mouth work. She lost the fight without realising it until her wandering eyes caught the shine of light reflecting off the blade of the knife in her shaking hand. The weight on her palm was comforting and she ran her thumb over the textured handle, reminding herselt that it was real, and she was home. 

“So…” Skye - _Daisy! Daisy, Daisy, Daisy,_ Jemma reminded herself - spoke slowly, somehow managing not to startle Jemma, though she still turned her knife to the sudden sound. “Baking, huh? Not going to lie, I never would have pegged you as a baker.” Jemma grunted, her panic fading and leaving her exhausted. Daisy took that as permission to continue. “Then again, baking is basically chemistry, isn’t it? And that’s right up your alley. Less pressure than the experiments you usually run, too, so that must be nice.”

“Yes,” Jemma managed to choke out, “it is.” She was still trembling, but less from fear and more from the crash that follows. Her free hand wiped her eyes again, and found fewer tears.

“I always wanted to learn,” Daisy continued. “I tried, a few times, but never managed to make anything edible.” She paused again, a playful glint in her eye. “Then again, it probably would have helped if I used a recipe, instead of just throwing things in a pan and tossing that into the oven. I didn’t even mix anything, I just thought ‘Hmm, I like butter and milk and sugar and eggs, so those combined should be good!’ I didn’t even crack the egg, just threw a whole one in the pan, shell and all. The sisters put a lock on the kitchen door after that.” 

Despite herself, Jemma chuckled. The thought of a young Daisy tossing ingredients at random into a cooking pan was too funny to resist. 

“How old were you?” she asked, clinging to the conversation like a lifeline. 

“If anyone asks, I was 6. But honestly?” Daisy paused, either for dramatic effect or because she was about to say something she might regret. “14.”

The chuckle grew then, not to a full laugh but to the closest Jemma had gotten to in months. It was too much, the sound grating painfully against her own ears, her overworked and underfed muscles aching from effort, but damn if it wasn’t the best she had felt in a long time. 

Daisy joined in, but only after sticking her tongue out in protest. She also kept a hand clasped over her mouth, muffling the noise she made. Whether this was to keep others from waking or out of respect for Jemma’s overloaded senses, she was thankful. 

The laughter tapered off naturally, leaving an easy quiet behind. Jemma was drained, physically and emotionally, but she knew sleep wouldn’t come for her yet. 

Slowly, she stood up and walked to the counter. There, she finally put the knife down and turned to face Daisy directly. “I know it’s late,” she started, hesitant, “and you probably should be sleeping. But if you’d like, I’d be happy to teach you. I would love the company.”

Daisy smiled and clambered to her own feet. “There’s nothing I would rather do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writeblr blog: @silverssideblog  
> Discord: cloudcover#7167


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